Fingerprint could solve da Vinci riddle

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Most art historians had always detected the style of Leonardo da
Vinci in the mysterious painting The Adoration of the Christ
Child, which is regarded as a gem of the Renaissance.

But there was never any proof. Now, a fingerprint discovered in
the original paint may finally solve the puzzle.

Experts at Rome's Galleria Borghese, where the painting, widely
known as the Tondo (Round), is housed, discovered the
print after removing layers of varnish from the 500-year-old
circular painting during restoration work last year.

"It didn't exactly jump out at first. I wouldn't have found it
if I hadn't been using my microscope," said a restorer, Elisabetta
Zatti. "But when I had cleaned down to the original paint, I
noticed a slightly yellow patch in the top left part of the sky,
right near the edge."

Given that Leonardo is known to have deliberately left
fingerprints hidden in some of his works as a kind of signature,
the discovery has raised hopes that this one-metre wide painting of
Joseph and the Virgin Mary gazing down at the infant Jesus may also
be his. "It's clearly a fingerprint left while the paint was still
wet," said Zatti. "But we still don't really know whose finger it
belongs to."

To identify the fingerprint, the Galleria Borghese will send
enlarged photographs to Poland next month for comparison with a
print Leonardo left on his Lady with an Ermine, which is
kept at the Czartoryski Museum in Crakow.

Zatti's year-long restoration involved removing layers of
varnish that had dulled the colours and concealed some of the
details of the original painting.

The clean-up revealed much of Leonardo's style, particularly the
use of chiaroscuro, and the sfumato technique which softens
outlines of figures. Other hidden details of the painting were
uncovered in the restoration, including typically Leonardesque
symbolism such as wild primrose, which represents resurrection, and
the blue veronica flower, symbol of the eyes of the Virgin
Mary.

Art historians will be wary of jumping to conclusions until
extensive research has been carried out on the fingerprint.

Alessandro Vezzosi, the director of a museum dedicated to
Leonardo near Florence, said: "If that is his fingerprint, it means
at least that he has worked on that painting."

Since the work first appeared in the records of the collection
of the Borghese family in the 1790s, it has been attributed to
various Renaissance artists, including Raphael, Ghirlandaio and
Lorenzo di Credi. In 1926 a renowned art critic, Roberto Longhi,
attributed it to the Florentine artist Fra Bartolomeo.